Grizz

How many frost-crisp mornings
have I watched them in
my beloved Northern Valley?
Not nearly enough, I can tell you.
Ruefully I count them on
fingers and not hands.
My first sparking thought
springs, involuntary
…they are electric!
Grizzled follicles
emit a rolling, bristling
energy that
can’t be described any other way.
I’ve had, always,
a kindred tie –
a blood mate with this knot
of muscle and fat.
From a deep-cell dream
of putting my last-day foot
into his print full of silvered
evening lit water –
to a waking vision
of a bear husband,
as I lay alone, undressed
under the wilderness sun
longing for you,
that time long ago when we were new –
to the dream of being a bruin myself,
waking mid-winter, groggy,
disoriented and wondering why
all that protruded from the deep snow
was the very top tip of
the same Douglas firs
that towered over Summer.
One precious, valley sun-dogged morning
I watched dream-readied
fat and muscle roll;
a huge boar lifted heavy padded feet
to step over fallen trees as if they were twigs.
Electric! – I thought.
And now – I am quietly satisfied with this idea –
such power and might
lays curled in darkness,
breathing heavy steam,
beneath the ground snow.
Does he now dream of me
– silver skinned, in cold stream draughts of
cut-throat plenty?